The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

opposite way from that adopted in refutations on side
issues.
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28
    Also, those refutations that bring one to their conclusion
through the consequent you should show up in the course of the
argument itself. The mode in which consequences follow is twofold.
For the argument either is that as the universal follows on its
particular-as (e.g.) ‘animal’ follows from ‘man’-so does the
particular on its universal: for the claim is made that if A is
always found with B, then B also is always found with A. Or else it
proceeds by way of the opposites of the terms involved: for if A
follows B, it is claimed that A’s opposite will follow B’s
opposite. On this latter claim the argument of Melissus also
depends: for he claims that because that which has come to be has a
beginning, that which has not come to be has none, so that if the
heaven has not come to be, it is also eternal. But that is not so;
for the sequence is vice versa.
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29
    In the case of any refutations whose reasoning depends on some
addition, look and see if upon its subtraction the absurdity
follows none the less: and then if so, the answerer should point
this out, and say that he granted the addition not because he
really thought it, but for the sake of the argument, whereas the
questioner has not used it for the purpose of his argument at
all.
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30
    To meet those refutations which make several questions into one,
one should draw a distinction between them straight away at the
start. For a question must be single to which there is a single
answer, so that one must not affirm or deny several things of one
thing, nor one thing of many, but one of one. But just as in the
case of ambiguous terms, an attribute belongs to a term sometimes
in both its senses, and sometimes in neither, so that a simple
answer does one, as it happens, no harm despite the fact that the
question is not simple, so it is in these cases of double questions
too. Whenever, then, the several attributes belong to the one
subject, or the one to the many, the man who gives a simple answer
encounters no obstacle even though he has committed this mistake:
but whenever an attribute belongs to one subject but not to the
other, or there is a question of a number of attributes belonging
to a number of subjects and in one sense both belong to both, while
in another sense, again, they do not, then there is trouble, so
that one must beware of this. Thus (e.g.) in the following
arguments: Supposing to be good and B evil, you will, if you give a
single answer about both, be compelled to say that it is true to
call these good, and that it is true to call them evil and likewise
to call them neither good nor evil (for each of them has not each
character), so that the same thing will be both good and evil and
neither good nor evil. Also, since everything is the same as itself
and different from anything else, inasmuch as the man who answers
double questions simply can be made to say that several things are
‘the same’ not as other things but ‘as themselves’, and also that
they are different from themselves, it follows that the same things
must be both the same as and different from themselves. Moreover,
if what is good becomes evil while what is evil is good, then they
must both become two. So of two unequal things each being equal to
itself, it will follow that they are both equal and unequal to
themselves.
    Now these refutations fall into the province of other solutions
as well: for ‘both’ and ‘all’ have more than one meaning, so that
the resulting affirmation and denial of the same thing does not
occur, except verbally: and this is not what we meant by a
refutation. But it is clear that if there be not put a single
question on a number of points, but the answerer has affirmed or
denied one attribute only of one subject only, the absurdity will
not come to pass.
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31
    With regard to those who draw one into repeating the same thing
a number of times, it is clear that one must not grant that
predications of relative terms have any meaning in abstraction by
themselves, e.g. that ‘double’ is a significant term apart from the
whole phrase ‘double of half’ merely on the ground that it figures
in it. For ten figures in ‘ten minus one’ and in ‘not do’, and
generally the affirmation in the